Before I spent time researching the Australian park scene for this trip, the only park I knew of was Dreamworld and the reason I knew of it was because of their Intamin Reverse Freefall Coaster, a coaster type that had always intrigued me. Sadly both the park and that coaster would be disappointments.
Dreamworld’s lineup at the time of visiting was very poor and many areas of the park were either closed off or falling apart.
Me and Heartline couldn’t help but find it funny when comparing what coasters you are presented with first at Dreamworld, when compared to Movie World. In Movie World’s car park you are in the shadow of a stunning hyper coaster and a very pleasing to the eye Intamin hydraulic launch coaster. In Dreamworld’s car park you are slumming it with a Maurer SkyLoop and an Arrow looper.
Thankfully the staff at the entrance were very nice though, offering to print us proper tickets when our phones didn’t want to work with the scanners.
Mick Doohan’s Motocoaster – How Intamin evolved their Family Launch Coaster model from this hot mess to the awesome Jet Rescue in just over a year amazes me.
After you walk through the queueline full of spider webs and over grown weeds you arrive at the station. In the station the ride staff batch you onto dots on the floor, dots that don’t line up with the air gates or make much sense at all. Then they open the gates and you scramble to get a seat, then as soon as you sit down you regret rushing to get there.
Unlike Jet Rescue just over a year later, Mick Doohan doesn’t use comfy lap bars but instead uses a really overly complicated set up that takes ages to get right. This bit comes down, that bit goes forwards, don’t forget to spin that bit, ah yeah that bit goes sideway, oh and my balls just got crushed.
Then worst of all you are sitting there for what feels like forever, in a tomb of sharp metals and plastics while they spend several years trying to entomb the rest of the train.
Finally you are off and it gets even worse. While travelling around one of the least exciting layouts ever conceived at only 40 mph, somehow it manages to jolt and bounce like nothing else. So imagine what it’s like in your casket of discomfort when suddenly everything’s shaking you to death. Well put it this way, it made a child cry and I think that says more than I ever could.
Tower of Terror 2 – From 1 disappointing Intamin to another.
So this was the Intamin Reverse Freefall Coaster that I was so excited to try out… Quick try to think of something positive… At least in it’s failings it was funny unlike Mick Doohan… Yeah that will do.
You enter the indoor queue through a funny looking skull and are then in what I imagine 20 years ago was probably a really nicely themed area. But now it’s all fallen apart and is plastered in mostly broken TVs showing music videos from 10 years ago.
Then you’re batched into a preshow area, where no preshow takes place, instead a staff member appears and shouts “make sure you lot check out the X in the gift shop, it’s f**king hilarious”. Before you have time to clarify that statement, the doors open and you’re in the station.
You take your seat, some lighting effects happen and you start accelerating backwards into a tunnel, where you keep accelerating for ages while the air pressure tries to blow your ears out.
Finally you emerge and travel about half way up the tower, get a beautiful view of a half demolished attraction, then you start going down again.
Back into the tunnel and almost as soon as you enter the brakes come on, so you end up crawling and heavily vibrating your way back to the station, which takes forever. Then you overshoot it and have to be manually rolled back in.
Post ride you get into a lift to take you to the gift shop, it appears this lift used to do something but now it does nothing.
Hot Wheels Sidewinder – Much like Tower of Terror, this Arrow Looper thankfully had some comedy to take your mind off just how bad it is.
The queue was almost parody in how badly it was presented. Dusty models of cars, a wobbly canvas tent, a very small section of vibrating floor for no reason and the smell of sewage.
The coaster itself is full of questionable transitions and violent jolts on straight pieces of track, which I found hilarious.
You can see DC Rivals from the lift too and wonder to yourself why you aren’t riding that instead.
With everything we wanted ticked off, we went for a walk around the park and if it wasn’t already obvious enough, on this walk it became clear as day that the park is a shadow of it’s former self.
Attractions half demolished, rides standing but not operating, loads of temporary fencing everywhere. It really did look like the park had already admitted defeat and were just waiting for the day they got closed down. The staff too for the most part were just coasting through their day, making as little effort as possible.
It would appear things have taken a positive turn for the park since I visited though, because in 2020 they are opening something very exciting in the form of a brand new Mack shuttle launch coaster. I look forward to getting a 2nd opinion of the park and I’m obviously very excited to try out their new coaster.
Day 10
Today we headed back to Dreamworld to try out their zoo, it wasn’t very good, before going on a drive and ending the day at an observation tower.
Day 11
We told ourselves we wouldn’t drive 70 miles from our hotel to Aussie World to ride a wacky worm but after getting bored yesterday we changed our minds.
My sleep was so intense that I woke up confused to where the hell I was or what I was doing there. Then I rolled out of bed, walked to the bathroom and discovered I’d been sunburnt in places I didn’t think possible.
Movie World
You first see Movie World’s brand new hyper coaster, DC Rivals, about 5 minutes from the park and from that point onwards until you arrive in the car park it only gets more beautiful.
Although Movie World is operated by the same company as Sea World, which looked a little worse for wear, first impressions of Movie World are very positive. Friendly and enthusiastic staff members at the entrance, a nicely kept entrance area, many coasters looming in the background and a massive pink hyper coaster right in your face.
We went straight to DC Rivals and joined the sizeable queue that had formed outside of the ride’s entrance. The ride team from Green Lantern (the El Loco) came over to ask us, “why wait for DC Rivals to open when Green Lantern is currently walk on?” He’s joking right?
DC Rivals – Being a huge fan of Mack rides I was so excited to try out their 2nd ever hyper coaster and I was more than right to be because it’s simply outstanding.
Climbing 200 feet in the very exposed and very lovely Mack mega trains is actually rather unnerving, though we will top that later. The first drop is brilliant, violently launching you out of your seat and pinning you to the restraint until you level out. DC Rival’s first massive air time hill delivers strong ejector air. Then you’re taken up and through a 131 foot tall non inverting loop, which I figured would ride gracefully but no, it’s crazy and provides yet more ejector air. The next section takes a break from air time and concentrates more on snappy twisty elements, personally this was a slight let down for me but it’s not long before ejector air comes back in style. Things really pick up again after when you are subjected to 4 insane air time hills in a row which provide the strongest ejector air DC Rivals has to offer. What a strong way to end a coaster.
Sounds amazing doesn’t it? But we can top it. For the low cost (at the time) of 5 Aussie dollars you can ride this World class machine BACKWARDS. Needless to say experiencing a coaster this good and this intense not knowing what’s going to come next is absolutely mindblowing and it gives DC Rivals an almost unfair advantage against the other World class coasters it’s competing against.
I think mine and Heartline’s onride video that we watched in the gift shop is the best advertisement you could ever ask for to sell backwards DC Rivals. It went something like this…
Climbing up the massive lift flopping against our restraint looking a little uneasy. About 2 seconds before dropping, at the exact same time shouting “OH F**K!”. Then we take the already intense as all hell drop backwards, with absolute fear on our faces. Then on every one of the intense air time moments (which are 10 times more intense when you can’t see them coming) we had the perfect combination of shock and unrivalled excitment on our faces. It was incredible.
It would appear DC Rivals helped to kick start a trend of insane coasters being added to Australia, so it deserves yet even more credit.
Superman Escape – This Intamin hydraulic launch coaster was the park’s star attraction before they added DC Rivals, sadly for me it’s nothing special.
The coaster starts with a long and rather well themed dark ride section which I quite enjoyed.
Superman’s layout should be really good but for me was let down by 2 things.
The trains, Intamin’s vest restraints work quite well with some of their coasters but not so much here. The violent air time on the top hat is just painful because of the vests and the high speed twisty stuff is also painful for the same reason.
The dark ride section, while it’s good fun it allows your eyes to get used to the dark, which means when you’re launched into the bright Australian sun it’s beyond uncomfortable.
When you combine those 2 issues it makes Superman rather unpleasant, which sucks because as I said it has every right to be really good.
Scooby Doo Spooky Coaster – I was quite excited to ride this heavily themed Mack Wild Mouse but sadly it was in the middle of a refurb which meant all the on ride theming had been removed. This meant it was just a wild mouse coaster in the pitch black, which to be fair was still pretty fun.
The park also had a Justice League shooting dark ride which was pretty excellent.
Strangely, despite it being school holidays and the middle of Australian summer, Movie World was closing at 6pm and this meant we wouldn’t be able to complete the park’s coaster line up and get much wanted rerides on DC Rivals. Therefore we decided to come back tomorrow morning and end today on one of the greatest coasters in the World.
Movie World is no questions asked the best park on the Gold Coast and now with DC Rivals should be on every coaster enthusiasts to do list.
Day 9
After waking up we quickly jumped in the car and made our way back to Movie World.
Arkham Asylum – The park’s SLC featured a fabric vest style restraint and while it did stop the classic SLC head banging, it did not make the ride any smoother.
With the park now complete we rode Superman again, sadly still disappointing.
So we spent some more quality time with DC Rivals before bidding it a sad farewell and moving onto the next park.
Thank you for reading, click here to find out what happened during the rest of our day, when we visit the rather terrible Dreamworld.
We arrived at Australia’s Gold Coast airport at 8 in the morning and thanks to my inability to sleep on planes I had now been awake for about 24 hours.
Our airline of choice was Scoot, an ultra low cost airline based in Singapore. The reviews of Scoot were worrying to say the least but there was no way our trip would have been as ambitious as it was if we hadn’t saved huge amounts of money on all of our flights. I’m no reviewer of airlines but I’ll say this, I’ve paid much more for worse, Scoot was fine, pretty good even.
Australian border force is exactly as it’s portrayed in the media. Strict, a little intense and extremely funny.
We had a shock when we were collecting our hire car, it was covered in dents and scratches but the paper work listed it as being clean. In any other country you’d have to report every single mark and get it noted down and countersigned before leaving the lot or risk massive fees on return. In Australia however it didn’t matter at all and in fact the car hire lady found it funny that we were worried about it.
While Singapore’s climate was a massive shock to the system, at worst it made you sweat and feel disgusting. Australia’s though, it’s pure evil. I got badly sunburnt on the way to the first park, in the car, with sun lotion on… Oh and this was only the beginning.
Sea World
I apologise if my recollection of this park is hazy but I was ruined for most of today. Literally falling asleep standing up and at points auto piloting to a ride or animal enclosure then coming to and wondering how I got there.
It took over an hour of heavy traffic to get to Sea World, just enough time to get sun burnt and fight falling asleep about 50 times.
Sea World is what you’d expect from the name, a marine based zoo but we aren’t really here for that, we are here for the 3 coasters they have.
Spongebob’s Boating School Blast – I don’t normally talk about the very clearly kiddie coasters but there’s so little to talk about at Sea World, so here goes. This coaster was memorable for 2 reasons, it was when I decided that Australia might be too hot and it was when I got the impression they aren’t used to seeing grown men squeezing into children’s coasters to get the credit.
StormCoaster – This clone Mack water coaster with enclosed sections was pretty disgusting. These things do nothing at all for me but at least many of the others look nice, this was just surounded by rusting shipping containers and had the splashdown in a slightly themed warehouse. My opinion of Storm Coaster also wasn’t helped by the queue going through an enclosed metal section that was insanely hot and loud, not at all what you want when you’ve been awake for 30 hours.
Jet Rescue – If it wasn’t for this Intamin family launch coaster my opinion of the park would have been more negative, thankfully though Jet Rescue is awesome. I was expecting a tamer much smaller version of Juvelen and while yes the layout is tiny, this thing packs a serious punch. While Juvelen builds up a surprising intensity, Jet Rescue stays at that from dispatch till brakes.
My opinion of the animal based stuff the park had to offer was that it was nothing special. You could put that down to being awake for 30 hours or doing the amazing Singapore Zoo a few days before though.
Much like me the park as a whole felt rather worn out and tired, with Jet Rescue being the only redeeming feature.
Thankfully though it seems things will improve in 2020 when the park are adding a massive Gravity woodie to their collection.
Once we got back to the car I was pretty much the walking dead and remember only random moments.
Almost losing the exhaust in the car park.
A grass hopper as big as my hand on a window.
A ghetto motel.
Then I was out.
Thanks for reading, click here for day 8 of this mega trip where we visit Movie World and ride the awesome DC Rivals.
Another case of unfinished business, but definitely not for the coasters.
Great position.
Saw the rest of the animals.
Rode the vintage cars. A real RCT throwback.
Did the train again.
Walked in and then back out of the Giant Drop queue. Not with that throughput.
And that was Dreamworld.
Went for a drive around.
Up some hills.
Ended up back at Gold Coast to do the observation deck owned by Dreamworld people. You wouldn’t know it was a tourist attraction as it isn’t really signposted at all. Stumbled across a little car park round the back of the area and walked across from there.
One of the fastest lifts in Australia or some dumb claim.
A few views from the top.
Dreamworld was promoted on signs up here. Movie World was not.
Withdrawal symptoms kicking in. Better get back to cred hunting tomorrow.
Day 5
Last day in Australia spent in style going a long way for a +1. The morning drive took us through the middle of Brisbane.
What is this, Japan?
What is this, China?
Aussie World
It was 1000 degrees, so this terrible picture was taken in vampire mode.
Here we are. The main event.
#1 Bug Run Kiddie Rollercoaster
A rare no-antenna tyre-lift model. Also can’t park itself properly.
Are you… scared
Of spiders!?
Finally, the first water ride of the trip. Can’t beat a good double down.
Took a spin on the wheel.
No sign of that spinner being built yet.
Developed a fear of large deceptive mirrors.
What’s in the shed? Honourable mention to the ride ‘Little Beaut Toot Toot.’
Golf was fun, though a little on the cheap side. I could have made it onto the hero board, but we were somewhat liberal with the scoring. And that was Aussie World, a nice little family place. Shame they lost their rare wooden wild mouse.
Found a few more things to look at in the area and on the way back.
Back here again first for some unfinished business.
Powered straight over to the SLC to get it over and done with. Escaped with only 1 trains wait and no one was going for the upcharge VR which is bought at a desk right at the entrance to the station.
#1 Arkham Asylum – Shock Therapy
It’s got those weird vest trains with missile firing handles. Rode like crap, but no lasting damage.
Called in for a quick re-ride on Superman on the way past as it hadn’t quite filled up yet.
Used the single rider trick again on DC. They had fixed one of the three broken seats since the previous day, but it still worked a treat. Also had one final backwards ride. So very worth the price.
Mission complete.
Dreamworld
Another scorcher of a day and another very busy car park. Hopefully they’re all in the water park next door.
First thing we came to was another Intamin family launch coaster, this time with motorbikes. Spent a good while in the queue watching the weird restraint system. Should be better than the Vekomas right?
#2 Mick Doohan’s Motocoaster
Nope. What a terrible ride. There’s some rubber padding where your knees sit that has worn away to a solid mess. Spent the entire ride which does absolutely nothing repeating the phrase ‘ow my knees’ ‘ow my knees’ ‘ow my knees’. It also reduced a local kid to tears.
Stumbled through some kids play area to Tower of Terror II.
#3 Tower of Terror II
The ride has become a bit of a joke. Whatever ambience it once had or fear it may have once instilled is long gone. The skull face and creepy industrial walkways are lined with TVs playing pop music videos while you stand in 40°C, moving 10 people every 10 minutes.
Almost ashamed to say this is the fastest ride I’ve been on, I’ll have to fix that very quickly. It certainly isn’t the tallest as it’s still barely making it halfway up the spike. Such a mediocre experience. Obnoxiously loud and felt nothing but a rattle. Then it failed to park itself. Then it overshot. Then you have to get in a grotty lift to exit which I was hoping to be some redeeming scare attraction. It isn’t.
Saw an exhibit of tigers and brave blokes upon walking the wrong way round to MadaPanda land.
#4 Escape From Madagascar
What sort of abomination is this? SFC with shoulder restraints. Rides like rubbish and even manages to bang heads at a top speed of 10Mph.
Well there’s only a Skyloop to follow this Arrow looper, let’s see if this park can go 5 for 5.
#5 Hot Wheels SideWinder
They’ve done it. Another miserable queue of heat, sweat and terrible music, finished off by a strong smell of sewage at the air gates. Trains have got a horrible clampy vest restraint ‘upgrade’. The track is terrible and not in the usual amusing fashion. Skip.
Affectionately named it the Drayton Manor of Australia at this stage, but really Troublesome Trucks is better than anything here.
#6 Buzzsaw
Better get that Skyloop then. I liked my first one. I like them less with each subsequent installation. At least it had no queue.
This 1-upped the throughput of Tower of Terror by being 8 people every 10 minutes.
Quite a good drop tower. Nice suspense at the top as it really takes its time to sort itself out. Doesn’t kick as much ass as a good small tower though. Height isn’t everything.
Walked past a couple of abandoned water rides to look at some animals.
Park was getting ready to close, so only saw a couple of critters.
Before jumping on the train to the entrance.
What a place. It’s quite nice to hang around in generally, but all the rides and queues are so grim. At least it’s done. Almost.
Bit of a teaser on the drive to the car park. Nearly caused a crash.
Day 2 – Warner Bros. Movie World
Rocked up at opening time to find it reasonably busy. Headed straight in to find an excited rabble of a queue to the entrance of the very reason we were here.
First impressions of the park is that it’s a bit squashed in places. 2 major coasters and the dark ride are all packed in just inside the entrance. Staff and managers were hanging around this area advising that morning checks were running a bit behind and the queue wasn’t open yet, but we persisted with the rest of the crowd. El loco ride hosts were leaning over the fence and asking people to ride. “Only 5 minute queues guys.” They were ignored. Maybe should have taken them up on the offer in hindsight, as it also got pretty busy later on, but like I said, no rush.
Eventually the main queue was opened and the crowd just about filled the length of it. Asked the man with the sign about backwards on the way past. $10 a pop, timeslotted fastrack. Cool.
Took about an hour from where we started to get on. I’d sort of zoned out what we were about to ride at this stage and it didn’t really hit me until the lift.
#1 DC Rivals Hypercoaster
It’s very good overall. Fantastic start with the crazy twisted drop, huge airtime hill and the non-inverting loop that would make Soaring with Dragon blush.
Middle section is decent but not amazing, the big banked corner doesn’t do much and is followed by a very long section of twisty turns and strong positives just on the right side of intense. I wouldn’t go as far as calling them deadspots, like my issues with Expedition GeForce and the like but if I’m looking for perfection, that’s where this ride falls short a smidge. Putting on my picky hat it doesn’t quite feel as well flowing or deliberate enough as a sequence of elements for this third of the ride.
The ending is back to fantastic again with the two very intense hills and another funky one halfway through a corner. I felt the airtime through my teeth here, which I’ll take as a good thing. It also joins the very exclusive club of rides where I instinctively use my hands to stop my head coming off.
Booked a slot for the backwards seats upon exiting and joined the queue for Justice League: Alien Invasion.
It has a nicely air-conned and themed building to queue inside. There’s talking going on from screens and an animatronic from the other side of the station, but you can’t really hear any of it in the queue. Don’t know much about this Batman stuff, but the gist of the story I got as the vehicle departed was ‘shoot Superman.’
Liked the ride quite a bit. One of those where you can shoot both the physical objects with lights on them as well as the interactive screens for your points. Shot Superman a lot, even when I wasn’t supposed to. Got the best score in Australasia. Good stuff.
Back to backwards. The time slot system got us on in about 10 minutes. Again I zoned out what we were doing until the very end of the lift hill. This was very clear on the on-ride video clip we watched at the end, which I rather regret not buying now. Calm conversation until the crest, followed by visible screams of terror and shouting down the drop and during the layout. Watching it back had us in hysterics. Whoever cooked this idea up is a mad man. Completely out of your seat falling vertically backwards and then sideways to kick it all off. Really intense throughout the whole layout and it enhances that middle section as without any sense of direction you feel things that didn’t even seem to be there in the forwards transitions. Hit the brakes just breaking down laughing and crying at the same time. A ridiculously good experience.
There’s still a park to complete. Jumped in the queue for the S&S El Loco.
Spent about 45 minutes watching Australia’s crazy wildlife. Birds fighting. Big lizards chilling. Good entertainment.
#2 Green Lantern Coaster
It was weird seeing the 4 across seating and riding another lap bar edition means I still like these rides just a little bit. They’ve definitely reprofiled that last turn since Mumbo as well, rides nowhere near as poorly.
Hit me again how compact this part of the park is, as you’re exiting this ride and running parallel to the main park entrance. Also hit us that half the day was gone and we still had quite a few rides to do. It was a little on the busy side so tactics might need to be deployed. Walked to Superman – 60 minutes. Hmmm. Walked to the SLC – 1 train and Virtual Reality. That ain’t happening. Walked to Scooby – 90 minutes. Nope.
#3 Road Runner Rollercoaster
Roadrunner it is. A bog standard Vekoma Junior. Tick.
Sucked up the wait for Superman after that. It passed quicker than stated. Lockers are back in action but they’re free here, unlike the meanies at Sea World.
#4 Superman Escape
Had a bit of a rollercoaster of expectations with this one. Came here with the phrase ‘Intamin launch full of air time hills’. Gonna be great. Saw it in person with the phrase ‘that’s just Rita with a top hat’. Gonna be crap.
Quite liked it though. Powering through all the indoor theming section on endless kicker wheels at the start is rather fun. “It’s SUPERMAN!” says the audio. “Lets go lets go!” says the Australian.
Offride is deceiving as it looked like the train was stalling on the top hat, but there’s a decent kick to all of the hills here and I apologise for the Rita comparison. Could have been really good but typically the shoulder restraints detract from most of the sensations.
Decided at this stage we weren’t going to achieve everything on that day and didn’t want to compromise on DC ridels. The main queue was staying full all day, so we jumped in the single rider queue which we had seen working well earlier in the day as at least 1 seat was broken/closed off on both trains. It worked. Saw from the top of the ride that the car park was now half empty. All the families seemed to have cleared off early. Booked another backwards slot and headed off to Scooby which was now a more manageable 30 minutes.
#5 Scooby-Doo Spooky Coaster
Knew nothing about this indoor coaster until I was being told in the queue. More than just your average Wild Mouse, with a few tricks up its sleeve and a lot of fun for it. Didn’t quite see it at its best as they were currently in the middle of retheming/refurbishing it. There was a sign outside saying some scenery may be gone. Pretty much all the scenery was gone and the whole dark ride section was just a warehouse. Made it a bit off, but rather hilarious.
I’m always in Singapore at this time of year, which serves as a great base to head for creds in the further reaches. A certain new ride made this year the perfect time to tick Australia off the list.
Flew out with Scoot who have a terrible reputation online, which is mostly false and from people expecting too much out of their dirt cheap economy ticket. Most of the arguments out there can be beaten down with a simple ‘you get what you pay for.’ If you don’t pay for meals, there’s supposedly a no food and drink policy and people get screamed abuse at for trying to eat on an 8 hour flight. In reality they don’t care. There was a man eating a footlong sandwich in plain sight before we had even taken off, but we had some good fun out of jokingly being very subtle and hiding our eating from the attendants.
Nice little lighting celebration upon landing.
Picked up the hire car and trundled towards the park. The roads were very congested along the built up bit of the coast with a million traffic lights and it took an age. In a very welcome change, we were in no rush at all for this leg of the trip. Research this time suggested all the parks were suffering after the Dreamworld incident, but I still allowed some extra days just in case. I had been putting off this trip for a few years now (thankfully), because it was always going to have to be at this time of year, in the height of their summer holidays. In my mind that would always mean busy as anything, hot as hell and generally not very fun. Research also suggested that it should have been a cool 20°C, but we still got the hot as hell part with every day being 30+ and most of the country making the news for mega heatwaves. This seems to plague me wherever I go at the moment.
Day 1 – Sea World
The Sea World car park was very busy and turning up half way through the day put us well into the overflow section. Being a park that isn’t primarily about the rides however, crowds weren’t an issue.
#1 Spongebob’s Boating School Blast
Started strong on a Zamperla 80STD. Not sure if their 1 adult per car policy makes you look more or less cool. Highlight: +1 Lowlight: Lack of shade
#2 Jet Rescue
Moved onto the Intamin famiyl launch coaster with some excitement. Queue was a bit of an arse as they were only running one train and there’s some nasty locker faff. Didn’t have any coinage yet for the lockers, so managed to harness the power of the easy-going ride staff and perform a bag swap at the batch point.
The ride is packed from start to finish with very fast and forceful turns. It doesn’t feel like it even needs the second launch for its size, but that keeps it going strong right until the end which I respect a lot. You also get to ‘save the sealion’ by riding. Bonus points for morality. Highlight: Pacing Lowlight: Locker faff
#3 Storm Coaster
Had to locker up for Storm Force 20. Another not particularly pleasant queue, very hot and sweaty inside black shipping containers to start with, eventually opening out into a rather well themed shipping area.
Quite enjoyed it for a Skatteøen clone. Coaster section is dull of course, but redeemed by the misty air time hill into an indoor splash with bonus theming and effects going off. Highlight: Indoor section Lowlight: Outdoor section
All the flumes and rapids in this part of the world are still down since a certain incident, so no other way to cool off for now.
Jet Rescue stopped itself on the second launch halfway through queueing for our next lap and people got evacuated out of the tunnel. This resulted in a hilarious uproar from the locals who all vocally decided “we don’t need theme parks, lets drink and have a barbeque instead.” Ditched it ourselves to see some animals for a while and returned later.
Good place to kill a few hours overall. Could probably make a full day out of it if you were into the shows and other animal based frivolity. An overnight flight with no sleep meant I was drifting in and out of consciousness by mid afternoon, so I may not have appreciated everything fully. Got a frozen Fanta in a souvenir cup and called it a day.
Bit of a teaser on the drive to the hotel. They should put a warning sign up. Nearly caused a crash.
